Currently, power consumption reduction and energy saving become an irresistible trend. On one hand, in a conventional 2G or 3G network, a base station generally provides a service to a user by using a carrier in a relatively low frequency band. As smart phones become popular, users raise a higher requirement on a wireless transmission rate. To satisfy the requirement of users, a carrier in a high frequency band with abundant resources needs to be gradually used to provide a service. Because a carrier in a high frequency band covers a small range, a base station using a carrier in a high frequency band is generally referred to as a small-cell base station. A coverage range of a small-cell base station is referred to as a small cell. To save power, 3GPP proposes introduction of a discontinuous transmission (DTX) mechanism, which is intended to reduce power consumption of a small cell in a manner in which a small cell discontinuously sends a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH).
On the other hand, because a base station usually continuously transmits a PDCCH, to reduce power consumption of the UE, a discontinuous reception (DRX) mechanism is introduced to user equipment (UE) in existing Long Term Evolution (LTE), and power consumption of the UE is reduced in a manner in which the UE discontinuously listens on a PDCCH channel.
When UE using a DRX mechanism is located in a small cell using a DTX mechanism, in other words, when these two mechanisms characterized by “discontinuousness” coexist, to adapt to DTX, the UE should not determine an active time (that is, an active time in which the UE performs PDCCH detection) of the UE only according to DRX of the UE, and should take an overlapped time between a DRX active time of the UE and a learned DTX (that is, DTX of the UE) active time of a base station as a time in which the UE should actually work, that is, the active time of the UE. Reference may be made to FIG. 1. In FIG. 1, a high level indicates a DTX/DRX active time of a corresponding base station/corresponding UE, a low level indicates a DTX/DRX inactive time, and areas in which high levels of UE1 and UE2 overlap high levels of the base station, that is, solid lines in the figure, are times in which the UE should work.
However, in practice, coexistence of these two discontinuous mechanisms may bring about a problem. It may be found from FIG. 1 that a phenomenon that the base station enters a DTX sleep time not long after UE1 enters a DRX active time exists. As a result, a work time of the UE may become rather short, thereby affecting quality of service (QoS) of the UE.